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Welcome!

Welcome to the inaugural post! Before jumping into all things film, a good place to begin might be to consider the reason that humans tell stories…

From left: A West African bard, or ‘griot’; “Old Father Storyteller” by Pablita Velarde; one of the earliest recorded stories, the Sumerian ‘Epic of Gilgamesh’; a still from ‘The Thief of Bagdad’ (1940), a Hollywood adaptation of the fantastic Medieval saga ‘The Thousand and One Nights.’

Since the beginning of time, humans have told stories. Just as they entertain, stories educate. They enshrine our highest hopes, just as they lay bare our deepest fears. They preserve knowledge of the past, and offer guidance for the future. They embody our deepest values and worldviews, and are immense reservoirs of insight and wisdom. Stories are integral to how we understand the universe around us, and they offer clues to understanding our very own existence. Indeed, just as a story has the power to transform an individual, stories have an immense potential to change our world.

It has been said that at the heart of every great story is the timeless human quest for meaning and virtue. Futuwwa (Arabic, فتوة) is a term that is traditionally associated with heroic ideals of bravery, spirituality, and self-sacrifice. The fata, or pure-hearted warrior, is a central, archetypal character found throughout world mythology and folklore, from the Arthurian legends to the Tales of the 1001 Nights to Japanese stories of the Samurai. My quest as a filmmaker is to revive this rich legacy, and to bring it to modern audiences.